


For Nothing

by castronomicaaal



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2588315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castronomicaaal/pseuds/castronomicaaal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sun is just too bright, the town far too quiet and passive. Death is messy, horrifying, and unnerving—the peaceful serenity of the day surrounding them too contradicting, too pure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place sometime after ‘Slabtown’. Beth has since been rescued by Daryl and Carol and is a part of the group making their way to D.C. to reconnect with Abraham’s group.

They’d been planning this run for days.

A quick stop to the nearby convenient store before heading out, leaving the safety of the house they’d been occupying in order to continue on their way to D.C.—Maggie, Glenn, Abraham and his crew already days ahead.

They had not, however, accounted for something like this.

His body numb, Rick drops aimlessly to the ground beside her.

Maggie.

Rick knows he will be the one who tells her, he has to be. But how does one find the right words? How is he supposed to look her in the eyes and tell her that they’d found her sister, alive and safe, only to be killed on her way to D.C. in a ruthless, arbitrary attack?

“Rick.”

Beth’s voice is weak, soft already by nature but even more so now. Still, it’s enough to pull him from his thoughts. “It hurts,” she admits shakily, tears welling up within her eyes.

He watches silently for a moment longer, his lower lip trembling, before he bends in and scoops her up into his arms.

Groaning in both pain and fear, Beth holds back just as tightly as she can manage.

Tyreese steps away from their embrace, wanting to give them some form of privacy, both of his own hands covered in her blood. He’s quick to drop the red soaked shirt he’d been pressing to Beth’s abdomen beforehand; it falls with a resounding plop before quieting, eventually settling against its newfound resting spot on the ground.

There had been just too much blood, leaving her lithe frame far too quickly to be stopped. It’d be impossible to move her without her bleeding out, no one nearby and no supplies handy to give her even the smallest hope of a fighting chance.

Rick doesn’t care that her blood is soaking into him, covering his shirt and pants as he cups her body to his chest. The truth is, he loves everything about Beth Greene, every little piece of her from her toes to her laughter to the crinkle of her eyes when she’s happy. So why should her blood be any different?

His left hand reaching forward to stroke along her cheek softly, Rick’s tears finally begin to fall. They’re slow at first, soft and quiet, but the more he strokes the more contrast he sees—pale, fine skin coloring rosy in hue; light blonde hair staining red with every time his bloodstained hand touches her—and within minutes he’s a sobbing mess by her side.

It wasn’t meant to happen like this.

Busy in their search for supplies and eyes peeled for walkers, they’d missed it as two men approached stealthily from nearby. With their gatherings in hand, the foursome had been on their way back to the car when they’d been ambushed.

Apparently starving and in need of both food and supplies themselves, the two men had approached with guns in hand and vicious threats on their tongues.

Beth, nervous but steadfast in her refusal to entertain their attempted robbery, was shot from close range in the gut nearly instantaneously upon denying them.

Tyreese and Sasha hadn’t hesitated in shooting back, Sasha’s outrage apparent as she proceeded to unload her entire clip straight into the man that had pulled the trigger.

Rick, meanwhile, had stood by aimlessly, his hands hanging limp by his side. One minute Beth had been there, right next to him, and the next she was lying on the ground, blood rapidly seeping from her gunshot wound. Unable to process it, he’d simply stood there watching, nearly catatonic from shock.

“It ain’t fair,” he chokes out. “Not you Beth, god, never you.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers in return, her own tears running like a fountain down her face. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Rick only weeps harder, shaking his head with a fierceness Beth doesn’t know if she’s ever seen from him before. “Don’t you dare,” he tells her, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. “You did nothin’ wrong, you hear me? It wasn’t your fault…” he pauses, trailing off and swallowing thickly. Another kiss is pressed to her nose and both cheeks, followed by her forehead and then the top of her head. Rick’s lips stay there for a beat longer, his hand cupping the back of her neck with the force of his kiss, before pulling away.

He can taste the bitter, metallic sting of blood on his lips, picked up while kissing the spots on her face his hand had previously been touching.

It tastes like regret, sadness, despair; a reminder of the life he’ll no longer get to share with this beautiful woman before him.

“Promise me you’ll tell Judith about me,” Beth whimpers, her own sobs making it harder and harder for her to breathe. “Please Rick, you got to let her know I loved her like she was my own.”

“Beth,” Rick mumbles, his voice barely recognizable, distorted from the distraught nature of his tone. “Beth, you’re gonna to be fine, stop it,” he responds frantically, shaking his head slowly and with both eyes never leaving her own.

“Promise me, Rick,” Beth cries loudly, her entire body shaking as she slowly sneaks her hand out to grab for Rick’s own. He intertwines their fingers easily, his thumb rubbing soothing circles along the top of her hand.

Heart sinking and suddenly feeling as though he may be sick at any given moment, Rick finally relents. “I’ll tell her, I promise. She’ll know how you loved bouncin’ her on your leg just to get her to giggle,” he whispers gruffly, his voice strained, “how you’d always bring her out to watch Carl and I in the fields, back at the prison. She’s gonna know all about you,” Rick assures sincerely.

“And my singin’,” Beth chokes out, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

“And your singin’,” Rick echoes, nodding, his face holding a slight smile of its own despite the tears soaking his cheeks, his own beard nearly drenched with the remnants of his sadness.

Rick can feel Tyreese’s hand as it rests against his shoulder, he can hear Sasha as she sobs loudly from somewhere nearby, but he makes no effort to move. Staying by Beth’s side, there isn’t much left to do now but wait.

His own thoughts mock him, betraying Rick in the sickest way possible—it’s mean, plain and simple, for the one person his mind is telling him that he needs so badly in this moment, to be the very same person he’s forced to watch die.

For a brief flash, it’s Lori in front of him; dying gently, her breathing shallow. But just as quickly as she’s there, she’s gone again—Rick has made peace with her demise long ago. In the end it’s still Beth—his beautiful, vibrant Beth—splayed out along the concrete of the convenient store parking lot.

She coughs jerkily, now too weak to make any movements to cover her mouth, and Rick sobs loudly at the light smattering of dull red he finds coating her lips afterwards.

Dying at the hands of another living, breathing human being; that’s the worst part, Rick figures. How cruel is fate to procure Beth’s safety for so long, to keep her in good health and good spirits in a world full of roaming dead, only to allow her to be put to death by man in the end with absolutely no rhyme or reason; and for what? The two bags of canned goods they’d had in their possession, ready to bring back to the car?

For nothing.

“I love you Beth Greene,” he whispers, defeated, “I love you, always will.” The words lay heavy on his tongue. Rick’s vision blurry, he watches her chest as it rises and falls; slower and slower and slower with each labored breath.

The sun is just too bright, the town far too quiet and passive. Death is messy, horrifying, and unnerving—the peaceful serenity of the day surrounding them too contradicting, too pure. Today reminds him so perfectly of Beth, leaving Rick breathless as he kneels beside her, his hand clasped within her own.

She’s long since stopped shaking.

And as he watches Beth’s eyes fluttering shut—his last glimpse of those two beautiful, big blue orbs full of sunshine and everything right within this messed up world—Rick knows that his own life, his will to keep pushing forward, has just shut with them.


End file.
